Operation Torch

Over the last few days I've been on a bit of an Operation Torch tear, creating scenarios, drooling over the Flight Deck Decals website, ordering books from Amazon, and updating aircraft stats and various listings needed for the scenarios I will be formatting and uploading. As it stands, I have sixteen scenarios to work up, with a wide variety of aircraft and ranging from two player to massive furballs. Most likely I will scale down the latter, simply as putting more then six or seven players around the gaming surface is not an ideal situation based on my own Check Your 6! gaming experiences. 

Here is the scenario list with plane counts:

Aces of VF-66

VF-66? Unless you have followed this blog for a spell, or enjoy delving into the obscure as  do, you probably have not heard of VF-66, with the squadron name of the "Firebirds." (VF-66 posts HERE) Yet, near the end of the Second World War, this squadron was being formed to fly a new type of plane, a hybrid piston and jet engine fighter known as the Fireball. As this squadron, and its mount, were being worked up rapidly to take on the increasing kamikaze threat, the vast majority of the pilots were being pulled from existing units, and some of these poached pilots were already aces.

The squadron commander, Lieutenant John F. Gray, had served in Task Force 58 (VF-5) as a Hellcat pilot, racking up 8.25 victories (one source, the Squadron/Signal MINI in Action that covers the Fireball, mentions twenty-four kills). Gray was allowed to pull men from his own flight from VF-5, and then also was able to handpick others. New pilots were designated to remain stateside and train for another FR-1 squadron, but this second squadron never came into being as the war ended and the contracts to build additional Fireballs were cancelled.

With about twenty pilots in the squadron, 70% had seen combat, and six had shot down five or more aircraft prior to joining the squadron. Those aces serving with VF-66 are as follows.

John T. Gray - 8.25 (VF-5)

Kenneth G. Hippe - 5

Collin Oveland - 5 (VF-24)

LeRoy W. "Rocky" (or Robby) Robinson - 5 (VF-2)

James S. Swope - 9.66

John T. Wolf - 7 (VF-2)

Aircrew quality for hypothetical scenarios would either rate as veteran (+2) or skilled (+1). I like to rate 40+ kills as Experten, 20-39 kills as aces, 5-19 kills as veterans, and 1-4 kills, or well trained pilots, as skilled. 

Updated Italian Stats

I have been trying to fill in the gaps on my Italian Aircraft listing, creating data points for Check Your 6! stats. For now, I offer, what I hope is, the most complete data bank for the Italian aircraft used during World War Two:

Italian Stats